Back in 2009, Walmart experienced a historical drop rate in its sales ratio. It was due to the poor customer experience that caused the company to lose billions of dollars for seven consecutive quarters. All this happened due to a single miscalculated customer research strategy. Walmart’s strategic team ran a superficial survey to study the needs of its customers, without any comprehensive analysis in place. Both offline and digital businesses had to face major crisis in the absence of a well-planned and iterative UX research and design services.
UX Benchmarking or Competitive Analysis is a process that provides the usability metrics for online products among its users. The analysis results serve as inputs for improving the user experience which has a direct impact on business ROI.
This blog post highlights the steps to conduct UX Benchmarking for maximizing user engagement and revenue.
Understanding UX Benchmarking and its Significance
UX Benchmarking refers to the quantitative analysis of digital designs and services. It is essential for evaluating-
1. The usability of digital design from a user’s perspective
2. The success and failure metrics of user interactions over time
3. The performance of your business against competitors
4. The ROI of your business
UX benchmarking is an essential component of UX/UI consulting services. It is a time-consuming and expensive study. The providers of UX research services use competitive analysis data to make designing decisions that have a significant impact on digital businesses.
For instance, the UX Benchmarking survey for an online book store must address the following questions-
1. Percentage of users who were able to find their desired books in a single attempt.
2. Time taken by users to locate the books
3. Percentage of errors in user interaction etc.
The statistical results thus generated provide well-defined UX performance metrics. The results quantify the user needs and challenges while using the product. Also, it enables businesses to have a better understanding of the user experience to formulate well-planned design strategies.
Steps for Conducting a UX Benchmarking Study
Ideally, the process of UX Benchmarking begins when UX designers have a working product in hand. It can be conducted either in the beginning or at the end of a design cycle.
1. Evaluate the existing site
The first step is to conduct a thorough assessment of the existing site and its design. Here, UX research consultants must keep in mind the needs of different user personas created during the UX research process. The evaluation must define certain benchmarks for the project. It can be either the business goals or standard industry practices for the project in question. The difference between the current and expected results must be noted for further stages.
2. Test Usability
The second step involves setting up systems and framing specific tasks for the users to test the usability of the product. Also, the design team must ensure that the final design is functional and interactive. It is important for participants to complete the given tasks without any disruptions.
Also, businesses must pay attention to the age bracket and types of users attempting the usability test. The participants must be a mixture of different user personas identified within the target audience of the business.
3. Redesign and Re-evaluate
The final step is an iterative process. The UX team improves and rectifies existing design until the user experience reaches the benchmark levels of satisfaction. Therefore, it is advisable to conduct UX Benchmarking at the end of the design cycle, after the site is live and running. Even more, it ensures that the time taken for the re-evaluation does not hamper the ongoing business processes. The providers of UX research services must keep iterating until the desired results are achieved.
UX Benchmarking- An indispensable part of UX Research and Design Services
UX Benchmarking is a quantitative research that reveals the performance metrics of digital products. However, it is not the only ideal way to fulfill the digital requirements of businesses and their target audiences. Furthermore, elaborate user stories, user journey maps, information architectures, and other UX research deliverables together contribute towards an effective digital interface.
Oodles Studio have a pool of skilled UX researchers and designers who ideate and build effective digital interfaces for multiple industry businesses. Talk to our UX Consultants to conduct an iterative UX research and Benchmarking process for maximizing the user experience of your business.
